10 December 2006

The Teddy Bear Affair

(alternately titled Beargate 2006.)

Well, Saturday's game has come and gone, but scandal has only just begun!

This press release, from Tuesday, announces UMD's 4th annual Teddy Bear Toss, a charitable event where fans are encouraged to hurl teddy bears onto the ice. The bears would then be distributed to local hospitals and charities. All in all, a generous endeavor for UMD athletics.

Or so it seemed...

Saturday night, fans were still trickling in, when Mason Raymond decided to get the teddy bear party started, scoring on the power play a mere 1:26 into the game. This prompted the Call Heard Round the World from UMD play-by-play man Bruce Ciskie, "AND HERE COME THE TEDDY BEARS!" A steady torrent of bears rained down on the ice. It's raining bears! Hallelujah! The players frolicked amongst the fuzzy precipitation, playing crack the whip, spinning and jumping through the bears, Mason Raymond showing off the quadruple axel-triple salchow-triple toe loop combination he had been working on in his spare time.

Little did the team know, but there were some evil forces at work. Bear-hating forces. Within moments of the aerial bear assault, WCHA Head of Officials Greg Shepherd was on the phone to his minions at the DECC.










Shepherd: I don't care what you have to do! These bears must be stopped!

So the bears were removed from the ice, and play continued. Referee Randy Schmidt felt it was safe, because the Bulldogs weren't going to score anymore goals. It just wasn't possible.

But six minutes later, plucky freshman Drew Akins, whose porridge had been eaten earlier that day by an unknown party or parties, managed to squeak a goal past bear-loving Bemidji goalie Matt Climie, who just wanted to see more bears go to charity. And so another wave of bears was launched onto the ice.

Schmidt, fearing the wrath of Greg Shepherd, conferred with his assistants, Jerome Krieger and CJ Beaurline. (Yeah right, like we would be fooled by your alternate spelling, CJ.) Schmidt warned the benches and the fans, who were only doing their part to help out needy children, that any further bears on the ice would result in a penalty for UMD.

Now, this is where the details get a little fuzzy. Pardon the pun. Because ten and a half minutes into the first period, notorious pick-a-nick basket stealer Matt Niskanen scored, again on the power play (which Schmidt was forced to give the Dogs, in order to keep a lid on the anti-Bear conspiracy), a bear came flying out of nowhere. Or, seemingly nowhere. An eyewitness (who somewhat resembles a bear himself) claims to have seen a fan from Bemidji, possibly motivated by the DQ Cup and/or Babe the Blue Ox Trophy, both of which were within Bemidji's grasp, throw a bear on the ice. Earwitnesses say they heard from the pressbox that it was a young UMD hoodlum, but you can't trust the press. All we know for sure is, more bears were on the ice, Detroit Wheels was in the penalty box, and Bemidji scored on the ensuing power play, as well as on a power play from a phantom trip from Trent Palm (who would never, EVER trip someone!) later in the period. Those two power plays turned out to be the difference-makers in the game, as the score would have been 5-3 UMD, we wouldn't have gone to overtime, and the 'Dogs would have won.

RWD wonders if UMD alum and Boss of Greg Shepherd Bruce McLeod will be taking any action, now that the anti-Bear conspiracy has been exposed.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

i thought bears hibernated in the winter....

LetsGoMavs said...

Man, can't do anything nice for the kids anymore, huh?!?! Scrooges!!

It's not like you were throwing dead beavers on the ice...

DC said...

I would imagine dead beavers to be very heavy.

Anonymous said...

The sentiment was nice, but throwing anything onto the ice is just dopey. It only takes one little piece of loose ribbon or fur fuzz to cause an injury to a skater. How about next time there could be bear collection barrels away from the ice?

DC said...

A Barrel O' Bears? Pitch the idea to UMD.

However, the teddy bear toss is not unique to UMD.

Stafford T said...

At least they were not "kodiak" bears! Whew, Camrose slipped past a bunch of egg on their face in this one!

LetsGoMavs said...

I just posted "hot or not" for your UMD boys. Woof...not too many hotties!

DC said...

Note to 'Dogs fans: You will see over at the Let's Go Mavs site that I am definitely going to choke out a bitch for that.

LetsGoMavs said...

I'm not too worried...I think I can take her! Again, I need pix to change my mind.

But, in all honesty...what's up with all these teams having crappy roster pictures? I really do think I need to go around the WCHA and take team pix for them each year! You could be my assistant.

Stafford T said...

Well at least the kid was saved from the wrath of the mav and got no billing. Better no mention than a comment tainted with vinegar. I knew those Mav fans had no taste anyway.

LetsGoMavs said...

Now, now Stafford T...don't make me come through the computer and flick you in the head. I have lots of taste.

That guy just failed to impress. Most of the guys were uggos, so I had to comment. Not like RWD was so nice to the Maverick guys on her rundown of looks earlier this year! :)

I'm a realist though, I point out uggos on the Mavs too.

LetsGoMavs said...

Ok...I gave the kid his own post..so you have to be happy now:)

DC said...

AAAAAAAAAGH this is a total trainwreck...

Let's just all move along and let LetsGoMavs extract her foot from her mouth.

LetsGoMavs said...

I'll partially remove my foot. Hey, I didn't say anything bad about Logan. He's average, nothing mean to say...so I just left him out.

You know, it's all fun and games.

If Logan's dad isn't impressed with me..wouldn't be the first parent. I had this little accident a few years back and spilled part of someone's beer on David Backes' mom's head. True story. I felt horrible, but she forgave me. Plus, she knew it wasn't totally my fault...but really was more of the guy's who was holding it.